THE STORY
UPLIFTING HUMANKIND TO CREATE HUMANITY
VIA SOCIETAL METAMORPHOSIS 1

 

Save Civilization or Create Humanity 2

Although humans have accomplished much and have demonstrated many quality attributes during the Era of Civilization, we might query whether, as a whole, civilization (a specific type of human societal organization) may not have been, in sum, negative for Gaia and for Humankind. A few have recommended we go Beyond Civilization [1], while more recently Naomi Klein [2] has claimed that capitalism must be replaced if humankind is to survive. I up the ante and propose that humankind must not only abandon civilizations, but create a viable nu humanity, if humankind is permitted to have a secure multi-millennial future. I deliberately use "nu", not "new", a distinction to be discussed later in the article. 3

Yet, the vast majority of solutions proposed call for reforming our economic system; essentially committing us to an attempted preservation of civilization, risking the very real (but denied) threat of Extinction (the E word!). A few cry out warnings; but can’t provide any hopeful solutions. I hope to suggest, here, a path alternative to collapse/extinction. In addition, I and others concerned, must collectively face our own intuitive/emotional denial of our Crisis-of-Crises (as evidenced by our behavior), even as our conceptual/rational minds work overtime. 4

In this chapter I hope to tease your curiosity that our future might be very, significantly different from all the other scenarios you may have considered. One where emerges an exciting Opportunity-of-Opportunities [3] ready for the taking.  5

The theme of this essay is an attempt to imagine changes in how humankind conceptualizes reality (as a distribution of different, personal worldviews) from the early 21st Century to different "times" (critical moments) on our path/expedition to a condition when the multi-millennial future of Humanity/Gaia is "secure" (as best it can be secure). That is, we have successfully ducked the bullet of catastrophic climate change and a personal-to-planetary, viable, sustainable, and thriving Humanity dances with a nu, emergent Gaia into the far future. 6

"Change", used here, can apply to both: 1) the specification of how a future "state" is different from a prior "state", and 2) processes that bring about the transition between "states". Change-1 is static; change-2 is dynamic. 7

I am not calling for futurist speculation of consequences to existing and future technological innovations, although they are very significant. I am not calling for survivalist speculations after collapse; or a post Singularity humankind. Obviously, we can no more accurately imagine details of these changes than our tribal ancestors could imagine our high tech civilization. The best we can do is being assertively open to challenges to many of our most "sacred" assumptions about "reality".  The changes I explore are not guaranteed to occur and may not have high probability (futures probability estimates are impossible without major, highly questionable assumptions). The changes will depend on specific types of actions taken by humans. They will be the result of human intentional agency.     8

In this human adventure I propose, where each human person will be a participant, I cannot avoid including my personal story of how I came to host an inner world named “nuet” (which I invite you to visit) [4]. At age 22, I discovered I lacked mental imagery in all sensory modalities – including visual and auditory. I have learned of only a few others who claim this total lack.  Outdated research claims 3% lack visual imagery and 7 % lack auditory imagery. This led me to study mental imagery (just at the time it was emerging from suppression by behaviorists). There is great variation within each imagery modality.  9

Over the years I learned more about my disabilities, such as having no sensory remembrances or sensory fields for creativity – and how this affected my interaction with others. Nuet serves as a context for what I experience. Each domain in nuet's world has less detail than for most others. This disability has been compensated for by the emergence of a special process of conceptualizing, and nuet's world can be more comprehensive than for any persons I have yet encountered.  I have come to view myself as a "savant" with both extreme disabilities and compensatory abilities - except that neither are in traditional categories and I am seen as simply "eccentric", sharing here a few of the insights relevant to a viable emergence of Societal Metamorphosis.  10

 

Two paths to a better future 11

Let us first explore our most significant and critical choice towards a better future. There are two main paths: 12

(1) Fixing and reforming civilization, humankind morphs/transforms by gradual, incremental, transformational changes from our current state in 2015 to a better future state. 13

(2) Through emergent, alternative views of “change” and “reality”,  a nu humankind forms and learns/organizes into becoming a viable humanity preparing for a healthy multi-millennial future dance with Gaia. This involves the use of new technologies and accurate/advanced knowledge of both the "current-state/history of humankind/civilization" & "trending changes", and emerging alternatives. Although a successful “shift” must occur this century (and possibly sooner), it will take centuries to millennia to “mature”. The “maturing” will be done by the next, much more competent generations. Our task is to manifest the “shift” . 14

 

On this second path, a radical transition is created. This transition has analogy with insect metamorphosis, with butterfly form emerging from caterpillar form, without transformation (morphing); a new process labeled Societal Metamorphosis. 15

The caterpillar doesn't morph into a butterfly. It doesn't absorb its many short, stout legs and grow a few long spindly legs. It doesn't grow wings on the heavy caterpillar body. Sequential pictures/states of the transFORMation from caterpillar FORM to butterfly FORM don't exist. Instead, early in the life of the caterpillar, some cells grow/develop into embryonic organs of the future butterfly, called Imaginal Buds. During the life of the caterpillar these imaginal buds are discs/clusters of small cells dormant (but nurtured) within the body of the caterpillar’s larger cells. Initiating active metamorphosis, the caterpillar encases itself in a cocoon and begins disintegration of functional caterpillar cells into a nutrient soup supporting the growth/development of imaginal buds into functional components, organs, and subsystems of the emergent butterfly. Most of the molecular components of the caterpillar become components of the emergent butterfly. This is a "popular" type of change in Gaia. I have read that in some instances each cell in the caterpillar/butterfly has two whole genomes, one for each form. For human societal metamorphosis we must create our societal analog of the butterfly genome. Caterpillar/Civilization forms cannot be morphed or transformed into Butterfly/Humanity forms.  At the molecular level there would be a continuous process, and in Societal Metamorphosis there would be continuity-of-life for many humans. But it would be more like migration between two realities than a transformation of realities. “Migrating to NU”, might be the title of our story; NU is the term I use to label the nu humanity, the emergent societal butterfly. [5] 16

 

BIGGER THAN BIG - BEYOND BIG PICTURES  17

I use "NU" (in caps) to label the set of models for Humanity/Gaia [6] I hope will manifest within this century. NU is bigger than big; NU is more than a big picture. NU is more that a description of the "state" of Humanity/Gaia on Earth Day, 2100. NU includes the history from 2015, and before. NU can't be visualized, or experienced. 18

HUMANITY is a creative, aesthetic, loving, intelligent process, emergent on a planetary scale. It is a new process tweaking the billion year story of biological evolution. At each stage in the process there are existential forms/systems (also called Humanity) of which humans living in that era are viable components.  19

NU - is an imagined social organism, the whole of humankind after societal metamorphosis or migration, a nu humanity. NU will grow, adapt, learn, develop, evolve, emerge for centuries and millennia. NU will be as radically different in form and behavior from 21^st century humankind, as a butterfly is from a caterpillar. We, change agents, although cells in societal imaginal buds, can’t fully or accurately imagine NU.  Thus, it is highly premature for us to propose the form for NU. Nu humans in NU will be far more competent than we are today. Although we are free to speculate, it would be a waste of valuable time and energy to debate alternative future forms of NU, when there is little we can, or should, do to secure our contemporary preferences. 20

new/nu distinction  I use the characters Here&Now to label the “experience of presence”. Here&Now has temporal duration; it is more than an instantaneous moment or the “present”. All is experienced in the Here&Now, including our past and future. “new” and “nu” are two alternative perspectives within our Here&Now. “new” refers to novelty in the Here&Now that relates to the “past”. “nu” refers to the novelty in the Here&Now that relates to our alternative futures.  Both new/nu are useful perspectives. “nu” explores potential. 21

Zeno's paradox is resolved when each halving of the distance covered is matched by halving the time elapsed - the foundations of the calculus.  NU is achievable when we match the full challenge of its creation with the exponential uplift in the distribution of humankind's potentially actualizable competencies. Contemporary humankind can’t create NU; but humankind can uplift itself to requisite competency levels to create NU. 22

 

Uplift for Transformation: A Pragmatic Future 23

What actually happens is beyond forecasting. Whatever emerges, transformation will also occur; transformations always accompany/follow emergence. To me, the first step to operate a radical transition with the established order would require a well organized “revolutionary” population. The alternative movements in 2015 are grossly inadequate to confront the “powers that be” (whoever they are). Big money suppresses much needed innovation. 24

Information about protests and alternative projects is managed in the corporate mainstream media. Hi-tech police power can control any “disturbance” and intimidate resistance. Corporations “own” most of the democratic and judicial structures. Today, the top constrains everything else. Significant change coming from the “streets” is a naïve pipe dream. The “powers that be” will do anything they need to do to maintain their dominance. 25

Whether our future transition is transformation or emergence, success demands a nu, highly competent, learning/organizing population to challenge the existing order, either by reform or replacement. UPLIFT (developed later) is essential to both paths. 26

The Magnitude /Scope/Complexity of our CHANGE is Beyond Imagination. 27

This is very difficult to convey. What humans are asked to give up is initially unacceptable until they fully comprehend and accept what they will gain. What is happening on Earth in this 21^st Century is not the fall & rise of another civilization. This is the first time the change is global, with no unaffected regions to support recovery. We have not only destroyed our humankind organizational systems, but have destroyed our ecological, resource based, home. 28

No one or force is coming to save us. Fortunately we have unrecognized powers and resources beyond our awareness and imagination. Just as infants and young children can’t imagine their potential futures as adults; so humankind is blind to many of its future options. I don’t speak of new special abilities as given to our “Super Heroes” on TV, or enhanced telepathy or eternal life. I speak of how human systems would develop if each person had access to personally supporting learning environments tuned to their unique propensities and the real needs of their collectives. Neither a top-down program (too much direction limiting personal creative agency) nor a grassroots bottom-up program (too much individual freedom by persons unable to be personally aware of all the consequences of their actions) can suffice. It is our challenge to weave a process, Personal to Planetary, where “domination” is not permitted. 29

Our potential future can’t be represented in a blueprint, an explicit plan to guide us through changes. We must continually design our own plans, test them, and revise them, proceeding through cycles of design and attempted implementation. We must begin to properly apply “scientific methodology” to social/societal [7] change. 30

Human innovative ingenuity has almost exclusively been directed towards “making” (material construction), and technologies for “making”. This includes tools to amplify our perceptions and actions; but again primarily directed towards our non human environment. Only the crudest attention has been given to human learning and organizing. When the “best is bad”, but we can’t imagine “better”, we honor the “best-we-have”. Organization, education, and economics all fit this characterization. The pseudo science of  “economics” has attracted most talent and the science-tech institutions primarily to further human material productivity. Religions, governments, and corporations are simplistic and crude compared to other technological systems. Even the exciting adventures in community living have never gone beyond temporary experimentation. Some of the organizational experimentation in hi-tech corporations is encouraging – but they are still all directed towards making things to market in our economic system. Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull [8] has recently caught my attention.  31

Ignorance: a positive form of knowing 32

Ignorance is knowing of what one doesn’t yet know or comprehend, and knowing of what one can’t yet do or appreciate.  One’s “ignorance” is one’s knowledge of their potentials. I have proposed that learning about and to use “ignorance” be an explicit feature of quality educational systems.  I was primed for this insight that led me to select and read the book: The Encyclopedia of Ignorance. [9] in 1977.  This is now an accepted, minority usage as illustrated in a recent book,  Ignorance: How It Drives Science  [10] which debunks the popular idea that knowledge follows ignorance, demonstrating instead that it’s the other way around.  As illustrated in these two books, the act of describing one’s specific ignorance leads to an efficient selection and explication of the most relevant knowledge we do have: framing our knowledge in our ignorance. The potential of the whole field of ignorance may have special relevance and utility, as distinct from our whole field of  “accepted knowledge”. Knowing of, the domain of questions and queries is a type of knowledge. While pure numbers of expanding publications are impressive, they don’t adequately reflect the changes in our structures of knowledge and ignorance. 33

The knowledge perspective tends to narrow the discourse more and more, until we end up with many semi-isolated silos of specialists. These specialists’ ignorance is often limited to only those issues related to their silo. On the other hand, dive into detailed debate on the fractal-like multitude of topics and discover the awesome extent of humankind’s expanding knowledge of process, new methods of gaining new knowledge (and wisdom). This is happening with only a very small percent of humankind. UPLIFT will be designed to tap into this wealth.  34

The Need for UPLIFT 35

UPLIFT is a term gathering nu meanings. I use it implying a bootstrapping, self-organizing process, not an external force lifting something up. A definition may be: UPLIFT is a process whose goal is to rapidly increase/improve/innovate the distribution of conceptual/intuitive/performance competencies in the global population. In this chapter I also use the term interchangeably with a specific model of change leading to that goal. UPLIFT evolves as the core process in stages: from an R&D team, a movement/network of communities, an organization/society, a nu humanity. Many quote Margaret Mead:  "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."   36

UPLIFT is a core process in Societal Metamorphosis. It cannot be achieved by reform of any existing educational system, and is much more than an educational process. OLLO (Organizing-for-Learning=&=Learning-for-Organizing) is the primary conceptual scheme underlying UPLIFT. 37

OLLO  is a novel, innovative approach for merging the old domains of "education" and "management" into a self-reinforcing process with a strong futures perspective. Instead of attempting to reform "schools", "businesses", "governments", and other diverse "organizations", OLLO offers a nu scaffolding for nu innovative models for change.  OLLO needs to be part of the diverse, movements of contemporary change agents, such as P2P, The Commons, PLAST (A Pattern Language for Systemic Transformation), People Centered Economic Development, Collective Intelligence, TheNextEdge, and literally thousands of other startup movements. 38

The vast diversity of humans in cognitive/intuitional/behavioral competencies and habits must be our real world. Norms and standard deviations must be avoided, unless meaningful. Our real diversity is our future.  We are much more than the sums of our norms. Once we begin to adequately attend to this relevant diversity, we will tap into its awesome power. 39

The essential “complementarity” in OLLO is critical. OL and LO are not in competition. They temporally-weave, in ways we are just learning about. [11] 40

There is considerable literature emphasizing humankind’s poor record in developing and utilizing human resources, which acknowledges the vast untapped, actualizable potentials in the human population. I expect that most of them are weak in recommending what to do, and call for reforming our educational systems. There is also literature pointing out the hidden agenda of formal education: to indoctrinate workers to the industrial system and to blindly accept authority.  41

In my analysis, stopping Global Heating and other human created forces driving Earth Changes (including Climate Changes); creating sustainable/resilient humankind; and participating in multiple recovery ventures –– demands UPLIFT – and the abandonment of the civilization model for societal organization. We must think/act beyond capitalism, econo-centrism, and electoral democracy. 42

The technological advancements over the century were accomplished by a very small percent of the population. Imagine what would happen if the whole population had these, and better, competencies. Don’t prejudge UPLIFT to be impossible – in the short time frame of a few decades – until you consider the full resources of our new knowledge.  If UPLIFT is necessary for survival, humankind can mobilize to make it real. 43

VECTOR TERMS  44   To illustrate the higher level of complexity to be considered in UPLIFT, three new terms have been coined. These are called here vector terms, as they represent the multi-dimensional aspect of the concepts labeled by each term. Vector terms are needed when one term (from a set of terms), elevated as a category label for the set, creates a bias toward that term (concept), when the other terms (of the set) may be equally appropriate. 45 galdee = grow, adapt, learn, develop, evolve, emerge. Types of change.  46 reeee = relevant, effective, efficient, enjoyable, elegant. Ways of evaluating action.  47 seaf = support, enable, augment, facilitate. Modes for helping.  48   A mantra for the ontology-of-becoming for UPLIFT may be: reeee seaf galdee. 49

 

No one is expected to buy into UPLIFT “lock stock and barrel” on the basis of this chapter. I estimate minimal effort being equivalent to a difficult university graduate course. I also expect a quality educational (seafing) process will be needed for many persons – that reading alone, without dialog, would probably be insufficient. Compare the magnitudes of effort and challenge. 50

Once we acknowledge the need and viability of the goal to "rapidly uplift the global distribution of human intuitive/conceptual/performance competencies", an exponentially growing population of active participants emerges. 51

It is important to emphasize that UPLIFT is neither a top-down nor bottom-up process. UPLIFT involves a dance of engineering design and creative flow; both planning-ahead and living in the Here&Now. In UPLIFT the human population both pulls and pushes. Scaffolding is designed and created from below, to pull others up. Those who embrace UPLIFT push the design and creation of new scaffolding, for themselves and others. 52

As you read this chapter UPLIFT is only an emergent idea, a tentative proposal. Very little of what one might expect in a proposal doesn’t yet exist in sufficient detail to motivate action. Much of this is intentional, as the members of UPLIFT will design their next stages, and as UPLIFT progresses, its competencies will increase.  53

We organize so we can learn more and we learn so we can better organize ( OLLO). We don’t attempt to apply our rapidly emergent systems of competencies to transforming our social environments, or even engage in large projects related to climate change – as important that is a longer term goal. Initially, we uplift ourselves, by our bootstraps, to a level of competencies and organization when we become a major positive force on Gaia. We galdee to become the nu social/societal, local-to-global, personal-to-planetary, manifested version of humankind; an emergent nu Humanity – a radical alternative to Civilization. Then we can be significant! 54

Choosing the Societal Metamorphosis track is difficult.  55

In the decades leading up to 2015, the most informed and creative change agents subconsciously adhered to the morphing or transformation model of change. They speculated on very radical differences between the "old" and "new", but - from their behavior patterns, it is evident that they deeply assumed "the end game" as morphing or transforming. Societal Metamorphosis was locked-into being only a metaphor for rapid, significant shifting (morphing) from old to new. 56

Two "situations" affected movement towards adequately conceptualizing and implementing Societal Metamorphosis. We are blocked by our intuitive/emotional/fast minds in denial of our extinction threat; while our conceptual/rational/slow minds are trapped in confusing, paralyzing loops. Emotion dominates reason as we confront cognitive dissonance. 57

In Denial [12] , the authors hypothesize that for self consciousness to have Darwinian survival value it had to emotionally deny death, otherwise humans would be risk aversive and not survive to breed. In our future, humans may need to be members of special teams to override this barrier. 58

Another barrier is our inability to adequately imagine Societal Metamorphosis as a viable systemic strategy or scenario, more than metaphor, because: 59

(a) Most persons believe the established order is too powerful to permit an alternative to manifest. The more knowledge one has of the "power structures and elites" and their wealth and technological competencies, the more invincible to reform they seem. Knowledge of the "powers" is made much more difficult with their ability to fabricate complex "evidence" and create sophisticated "spin campaigns" to promote and sustain deceptions. Key to this is an intentional demonization of "conspiracy thinking". 60

Replacement (not reform) strategies, in that they don't initially challenge establishments, have an opportunity to emerge without suppression.  The actions required are OLLO and the building of an UPLIFT movement, which requires significant change for change agents - more about being part of changing themselves than changing others.  61

(b) Most persons lack sufficient knowledge of how the synergy of many new discoveries makes the rapid emergence of a viable "societal butterfly" possible - in the short time frame before collapse. Most change agents, if they devote the time to read about it, categorize Societal Metamorphosis as a Utopian Fantasy or SciFi speculation. 62

However, the initiation of UPLIFT doesn't require the participation of many people, certainly not most. Yet, the most frequent objection to this proposal is "people can't change that fast" or "most people won't understand" or "most people are addicted to the material world".  The UPLIFT model is specifically proposed/designed to "motivate” the whole global population and help people “learn and organize” - in stages and over time - starting with full knowledge of the contemporary distribution of addictions, habits, beliefs, knowledge, competencies of a very diverse population. 63

(c) The social/societal [7] systems of many change agents are dysfunctional relative to their abilities to explore alternatives. The positive value of intentions and the personally rewarding "communities of dialog and practice" contribute to the delusion of doing "all that is possible", and to remain quite conservative related to basic practices.  64

The change agent movement is far more diverse than we usually take it to be. We often imagine it as the whole of those persons we are aware of and who are active. This is a very small subset. Most are doing good work in the context of their objectives, although all could improve and would benefit by greater collaboration. Each works in a context (largely, critically unexamined). Social pressures keep them focused. There is neither time, motivation, nor immediate benefit to challenge these contexts, even if continuing as usual results in some cognitive dissonance. 65

The cognitive dissonance between practice and perspective is usually resolved for individual persons in favor of maintaining practice (Kuhn's early "paradigm").  It might be different for special teams, where social pressure is directed towards challenging contexts (which starts with challenging perspectives of practices), but is supported by changes in practices (involved in the challenging of contexts). This needs further exploration.  The “dialectic” between practice and perspective will be the same “Möbius spirals” as between OL and LO in OLLO. 66

(d) Each specific structure both enables and inhibits systemic processes. In designing systems to facilitate certain processes we frequently ignore what processes that system's structure inhibits or makes difficult. Frequently ignored by action oriented systems are the continued learning of members (often in unexpected domains), evaluating and improving the system, and adequately relating with other systems.  "Goals" (the intended consequences of achieving objectives) are also seldom given the attention needed. Accomplishing goals usually depends on the activities of other systems. 67

As awesome as our intelligent technology is, the specific structures that emerged (e.g. email, social media online; learning venues such as courses and conferences, cell phones, etc.) makes it difficult to develop many needed processes. Humans are usually more conservative as to practices (paradigms) than to ideas (perspectives). Change agents are usually not aware that their new tools may actually limit what they can do. Sometimes a process made easy and enjoyable by the structure of the new technology is seductive and attracts attention away from other processes. Online dialog often distracts efforts for constructing collective structures, such as strategies and educational programs. 68

Persons can differ greatly in how they approach change and "the future", and often aren't aware of this diversity. Those not having developed adequate "futuring" processes often belittle others for wasting their time. Persons who "futurize" are frustrated by those who can't recognize the need to assess options related to different consequences. 69

No humans have yet been successful seafing significant change in societal systems of the size and complexity of contemporary reality. We have sometimes been successful in creating viable communities (tribes with uniform cultures) or businesses. But, creating viable societies composed of diverse communities and cultures is a technological challenge seldom even recognized. 70

Ancient civilizations were as competent as we in managing people, maybe even better - and with much more primitive technologies.  What we must do [13], in a few decades, is innovate advances in human-social technology equivalent to what has developed the past few millennia in the technologies of non-human, "natural" processes. For example, astounding gains were made in: metallurgy, horticulture, agriculture, construction, road and bridge building, transportation, seafaring  machines, tools, chemistry, animal husbandry, and unfortunately "war".  Health care and education had a much more checkered history. Humans demonstrate great ingenuity, creativity, innovation - whether as indigenous tribes, Roman road builders, or pyramid and cathedral constructors - all without electricity or the internet to organize labor. There has been little advance in the technology of systems where human persons are the key components. 71

There is more than a hint of progress in the curation by Giorgio Bertini's Learning Change blog [14].  For over a year I have been reading Giorgio's brief summaries of literally hundreds of quality articles on many diverse topics related to human change and learning change.  There is so much quality knowledge about humankind and change rapidly accumulating that it overwhelms me to contemplate how to use this knowledge. The assumptions we make about how humankind changes (or functions or organizes) and apply in our activity are light years behind what this new knowledge informs us. We have yet to discover/create how to work with it. 72

And this is only one of a great many domains where our new knowledge far exceeds our abilities to apply. In analogy: although the authors of a given research perceive both trees and groves; the larger and more complex "forest of diverse groves" remains out of focus. Most decision makers are unaware of or trivialize this vast resource which would greatly support OLLO (Organizing-for-Learning=&=Learning-for-Organizing), and the success of UPLIFT and Social Metamorphosis models. 73

The contexts and limiting vision of their challenge, along with inadequate technologies (relative to nu needs) inhibits change agents’ capacity to be effective. A major reason is that a "technology of human change" has yet to be scientifically based. False or inaccurate beliefs and dogmas are at the foundations of attempts at intentional human change. Most human change just emerges without much intention about “big pictures”. Our current knowledge of this process (which we could surf if we could forecast the waves) is also lacking.  74

 

What Might Change Agents Do, that they aren’t yet doing? 75

Seeds, Soil, Scaffolding.  76

I favor a horticultural analogy I call SSS (viable Seeds, fertile Soils, and nurturing Scaffolding) for change agent activity. We take action to create/produce VIABLE SEEDS (proposals for projects) but make inadequate effort to effectively distribute them and nurture the engagement of the audiences with the sprouting seeds. We flood our Social Media with seeds commenting on seeds. We enjoy this dialog and believe “real change” will, eventually, emerge from it. 77

We virtually ignore what may be needed to prepare and assist many others in comprehending our seeds. We systematically ignore the need to also create/produce FERTILE SOILS and NURTURING SCAFFOLDING for our seeds.   78

The viability of seeds and the fertility of soils complement each other.  Are the soils semi-isolated persons reading the same book, with occasional book clubs? Do we need different versions of seeds to match different soil types?  Given a seed and a soil, what “fertilizers” may be needed to seaf comprehension? What projects are needed to determine cognitive profiles for relevant individual differences? Can a positive use be made of our Big Data technologies for personalized discourse? How do we handle privacy/transparency concerns? 79

Nurturing scaffoldings are important in countering the tendency of seed-soil matches to evolve into closed silos. We cannot expect dedicated communities of practice to devote adequate time and energy to seek and engage with other communities of practice. Seafnets will be needed to know about and match communities. Communities must dedicate a subsystem to be responsible for the larger network of communities and their seafers. 80

Seafing is a powerful second order system/process. Seafnet will be a well organized network of humans, trained and dedicated to Supporting, Enabling, Augmenting, and Facilitating other persons/teams/communities working on first order projects. Seafing, a generalization of the proposal by Shoshanna Zuboff in The Support Economy [15], will serve as an enzymatic accelerator to human social change. 81

This chapter is only a Seed. I point my finger at myself. Creating/producing Soils and Scaffolding involves making seeds about soils and scaffolding; but requires more: different types of activity. We have yet to reach an effective level of competent seed creation and discussion about soil and scaffolding creation/production. Recently I have suggested strategy construction as a complementary activity to dialog. 82

 

BUILDING SCAFFOLDING and SEMS (Semiotic Structures)[16] 83   Scaffolding are temporary engineered physical structures designed to seaf the reeee galdee of living systems (persons, teams, communities, societies). Physical structures here include semiotic structures: observable patterns in a physical substrate that results in meaning when perceived. The meaning results from an interaction of the pattern and the perceiver.  84   Scaffolding could include trained human persons performing to scripts. Exemplars of semiotic structures (sems) would be digitized text, graphics, and audio/video sequences. One type of actions by users of scaffolding would be the creation of new sems or the editing of sems in the scaffolding. Users of scaffolding usually communicate via the exchange of sems.  85   Scaffolding may also include any other physical structures used, such as tools, instruments, displays, machines or physical substrates that are manipulated, as in construction. However, the primary components in the design of a scaffolding are sems; although the nature of the media displaying sems strongly determines the reeee of perception and study of sems. 86

 

For me, this is a convoluted domain; in a way still at the boundary between order and chaos. It has dimensions beyond our emotional issues and immediate concerns; yet attending to this domain may have very significant impact on our personal lives. High abstractions weave with our immediate moments – which makes dialog difficult. 87

 

Nu Language 88

The issue of Social Metamorphosis is related to our awesome cognitive diversity where the concept of a norm for a human is as inappropriate as thinking of a norm for a mammal or tree. Our means of interacting and what we collectively produce are still on the steep upslope of innovation, with major paradigm shattering process ahead.  We desperately need nu languages and different media for expression/interaction. The digital realm has primarily facilitated new versions of old processes and media – as is the usual pattern for the consequences of innovation. What is truly unique to the digital realm is only beginning to emerge and not yet adequately comprehended.   89

Our conceptual schemes have become so much more in magnitude, scope, and complexity that we can no longer hold them in our working minds. We must go beyond simple settings for processing information and linear exchanges. We need semiotic structures that evolve via human participation. Wikipedia is a poor analog, and explorations into Global Brains are attempting too much too fast.  Learning & organizing must be integrated into these evolving/emerging representations of conceptual reality. The human agents working at this level may need to be cybercrews, as it probably involves activity beyond the competencies of single persons. We need to experimentally create a nu perceptual language that is totally free from having to be spoken (although speech sequences could be components). We need media for both composing and processing that integrate the dual nature of our knowledge structures: nested (outlines) and networked (hypermedia).  The new economy of digital production enables us to present each  sentence on a screen (with all kinds of enchantments for comprehension) and abandon this compressed text artifact from ancient times! 90

 

LEARNING EXPEDITIONS 91

Learning expeditions is one of a variety of  new small-to-midsize group organizational forms that might be created as humankind emerges into the computer-mediated digital realm. As noted elsewhere, we are just beginning to see deep cultural/epistemic changes, consequences of recent innovations. Many of our crises are consequences of this massive shift between cultures/epistemologies underway. 92

The exploratory expeditions of the 19^th century are my metaphor.  Groups of persons formed tight semi-isolated living/working communities for an extended period of time.  There also was an extended community which supported the core expedition, both before and after the active period of the expedition. Many things were accomplished by these expeditions; the primary achievement was learning – of both participants and of humankind. The positive attributes of exploratory, learning expeditions should be integrated into nu learning expeditions. The semi-isolation and deep community relationships are very important – in the sense of being “on retreat” for the duration. 93

I lived in an urban commune in New Haven when at Yale, and I wintered over in the Antarctic 1960-62 with 19 other men. We didn’t have a common objective, but there was considerable mutual aide. Biosphere II in Arizona was another variation, not too successful.  Many proposed “projects” could be conducted as learning expeditions.  There should be special organizations that seaf the infrastructure for teams wanting to create learning expeditions. Many decades ago, George Por borrowed the Learning Expedition concept (with acknowledgement). It remains a viable insight. 94

I would very much desire a learning expedition to brain-pick Larry/nuet and his archive before he becomes senile and dies.  I would submit to interrogation and manipulation.  In addition to Nobel and MacArthur awards, humankind would gain much by identifying persons whose mental development far exceeded their published productivity. Not that their views be accepted, but that world-weaving “successes” should not be wasted.  Had they existed, I would have been part of Learning Expeditions of Gregory Bateson, Erich Fromm, etc. I nominate the following to be explored by Learning Expeditions: Douglas Hofstadter, George Por, Jerome C. Glenn, Tom Atlee, Glistening Deepwater, Oliver Sacks, Howard Rheingold, and many, many others.  Might learning Expeditions be part of Seafnet activity? 95

What Next? 96

The text of this chapter is a crude distillation of many times more words/texts composed for this chapter – and  this from a reservoir of four decades of thinking and writing. A viable nu humanity may seem “alien”, compared to envisioned minor transformations of our contemporary reality. That these are critical times is an understatement. If you sense that my proposals for UPLIFT and Societal Metamorphosis have merit, I heartedly invite you to dialog with me, and assist us going beyond dialog. 97

 

REFERENCES & ENDNOTES  98

[1] Quinn, D. (1999). Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure (New York: Three Rivers press)  99

[2]  Klein, N. (2014). This Changes Everything (New York: Simon & Schuster) 100

 

[3] This contrasting pair, Crisis-of-Crises and Opportunity-of-Opportunities signifies a meta-perspective involving deeper feedback loops and cybernetics. “Crisis-of-Crises” is much more than a “crisis”, as “Opportunity-of-Opportunities” is more than an “opportunity”. This significant distinction can’t yet be experienced by the vast majority. 101

[4] Access to all my online publications: http://nuet.us/title-page/online-accessible-docs-by-nuet/ Email Larry at nuet1370@gmail.com for a “tour”. nu-et, is  a “nu” (variation of “new” with a futures orientation), “et” (extra-temporal - a la extra-terrestrial, or explorer-in-time). 102

[5] Comprehending insect metamorphosis remains an evolving scientific project, with controversies as to its evolutionary origins. These details are not relevant for the use of insect metamorphosis as analog for societal metamorphosis.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginal_disc . https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/insect-metamorphosis-evolution/ 103

[6]  xxxxxx/yyyyyy I often use two terms, separated by a slash, to focus on the relationship between the two conceptual schemes labeled by the terms. Humanity/Gaia labels the dynamic. galdee processes that influence the galdee of both Humanity and Gaia. 104

[7] social/societal  The distinction between these two conceptual schemes and their interaction is critical to our comprehension of change. “Social” involves the bio/psy interaction patterns of “real” humans. “Culture” is in the domain of social.  Societal refers to structures that constrain the social, such as organizations, institutions, governments, and corporations. Societal rose to dominance over social with civilization. Today, many change agents try to change social first, as that is what they have access to. Yet, deep change in social requires radical change in societal. 105

[8] Catmull, E. (2014) Creativity, Inc. (New York,  Random House LLC) 106

[9] Duncan, R., Weston-Smith, M. (editors) (1977) The Encyclopedia of Ignorance: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Unknown (Pergamon Press) 107

[10]  Firestein,S. (2012) Ignorance: How It Drives Science (New York, Oxford University Press, Inc.) 108

[11] I pay homage to Donald Michael’s On Learning to Plan and Planning to Learn (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1973), a seminal book in nuet’s emergence. 109

[12]  Varki, A.  (2013) Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind (New York, Twelve, Hachette Book Group) 110

[13] In a 1969  SCIENCE journal article, with this title “WHAT WE MUST  DO” by an old university mentor, John R. Platt, launched my many decade adventure, leading to my major insight cascade in 1974.  http://home.comcast.net/~larryvictor/NUCOM/WhatWeMustDo_Platt.pdf     111

Platt focused on the potential of social technologies, but didn't seem aware of the distinctions I make here. It may be significant that it took me nearly five decades for this distinction to clarify, just now, although I had hints before. 112

[14] Bertini, G. Leading Change Blog <https://gfbertini.wordpress.com/> [Retrieved 15 May 2015] 113

[15] Zuboff, S. (2002) The Support Economy (Viking Penguin)   114

[16] Victor, L. (2010). “Bootstrap UPLIFT Scaffoding - BUS” Proposal submitted to InnoCentive <http://bit.ly/1EDuyIg> [Retrieved 15 May 2015] 115